


Wake Up

by lloydshoulddyehishair



Series: Ninjago Oneshots [4]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Daddy Issues, Gen, Mommy Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28652688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lloydshoulddyehishair/pseuds/lloydshoulddyehishair
Summary: Lloyd reflects on his and his parents relationship. He figures he never even had a chance for a happy childhood.
Relationships: [none]
Series: Ninjago Oneshots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1184042
Comments: 12
Kudos: 34





	Wake Up

Lloyd’s relationship with his mom was  _ complicated _ to say the least.

Sometimes he could care less about what she thought of him and how she felt, other times he felt like his whole worth depended on whether she valued him or not.

And right now? Right now he just wanted her _gone_.

The sobs that escaped his lips were interrupted by hysteric hiccups every other minute and he felt like something in his chest was being torn and ripped apart between desperation and anger.

He didn’t understand his mom, _really_ didn’t. She kept on making promises and giving him gifts for the promises she had broken before (which were basically all of them) in the hope that it would fix the hole she had left in his heart. Then she would turn around and yell at him and leave him _again_. His mother had left him so many times since his dad was banished to the Departed Realm, he couldn’t even count them if he wanted to.

Of course she sometimes came back and he tried his best to convince himself that she came for him but as his uncle disappeared and Misako stopped showing up for about a year, not even sending simple things like a text or a letter, he realized it had been his uncle she had been coming back for the entire time and not him – her son.

In that year Lloyd had spent a lot of time with Skylor, she had helped him realize that your parents’ love never determined your worth and that sometimes, _just sometimes_ , it was better for them to simply vanish rather than showing up and leaving again, over and over.

And he thought he was over it. He thought he had it all under control. Of course, the sudden sadness that would hit him as Kai, Nya and Jay talked about their mothers sometimes still hit him and hung over him like a grey cloud but it got easier to deal with it.

But then she came back and every progress he had made in the past year and a half vanished like snow melting in the sun.

He hated himself for it because he _knew_ she didn’t deserve his sympathy, nor did she deserve his love – Kai had told him that many times before – but whenever he looked at her he just-

He just wanted to cry and throw himself into her arms. He just wanted his _mother_ back.

‘Back’, Lloyd choked on a bitter chuckle as the tears kept on streaming down his face. It wasn’t like he ever had had a mother in the first place, perhaps that was why he so desperately wanted her to be there now. To fill the gap she had left when she abandoned him when he was little.

But the thing was – Lloyd wasn't little anymore. He felt like he should be over it by now, be okay with the fact that she simply didn't care for him. He had defeated the Overlord, a bloodthirsty dictator otherwise known as his father and an army of demons from another realm, for the FSMs sake. He still couldn't defeat his fear of not being loved by _her_ though.

And maybe it would have been easier to deal with if he had had a father that hadn't done pretty much everything in the book to traumatize him.

Skylor had told him before that it was completely normal to feel like that, to long for a parent that made it so harshly obvious that they simply didn't care. She had told him that even she felt that way sometimes, even years after her father had been sent to the Cursed Realm and even after everything he had done. Back then Lloyd didn't really understand how she could still love him but he didn't judge her either – kid's of evil warlords gotta stick together, right?  
But now he understood what she meant because now he was in the exact same position as her, if not even worse. Her father at least hadn't killed and injured thousands over his few month long reign of terror.

A part of him hated him, a small part. The other part, however, still loved him, still wanted him to turn good and be by his side, still seeked validation from him. Because after everything he still was his father – and it hurt. It didn't feel right, loving a _murderer_ , a _psychopath_ and even thinking about the fact that he had actually _considered_ Harumi's offer to join the Sons of Garmadon on the skytram just so that he could be back at his fathers side-

_Guilt_ , that was the best word to describe it, because even after everything his friends had done for him, he had still considered betraying them for a man who had – quite literally – chucked him through concrete walls and disowned him.

Lloyd thought it was weird, how you could miss something you never had in the first place. Okay, yes, maybe his dad had been around for quite some time, nevertheless it still wasn’t nearly comparable to the amount of time he _wasn’t_ around and he had been feeling this way since he was a child.

Maybe it was the fact that he saw other people having parents that made him feel like he was missing something. Even at Darkley’s the children had had parents that took care of them, took them home or sent them gifts on the holidays – the blond never had any of that, always remaining all alone when everyone else went home in that way too big boarding school and crying by himself in the bathroom on his birthday because the other kids would make fun of him for not having a family to celebrate with. Children could be cruel sometimes, especially the ones at Darkley’s.

And maybe it would be easier if he wasn’t surrounded by people with “happy” families. Of course his friends’ families all had their problems and flaws, Kai and Nya thought for years that their parents were dead, Cole’s mom had died and he had an argument with his father, Zane’s father had died and Jay found out he was adopted. In spite of that, though, they all ended up _fine_ , none of them had been willingly abandoned by their parents at an unsafe place, none of them had almost been _murdered_ by one of their parents and none of them had a parent that sticked around, keeping on making false hopes to build a relationship that would never be reality-

Fine, he _was_ jealous – but was it really so bad to be jealous of someone for having a happy family?

It wasn’t like he wasn’t glad that in the end they all ended up happy, they definitely deserved it, but at the same time he couldn’t help but ask himself where his happiness was. When was his happy ending to come? He had done so much for Ninjago, always thought about himself last because he had a duty to the land and its people due to the prophecy that had been thrown onto his shoulders. He had given up his childhood (not that he had one to begin with), fought his father thinking he would have to _kill_ him, cursed him to save Ninjago just after having him back, barely recovered from the effects Morro’s possession had had on him but already jumping into battle right away to – once again – rescue the (ungrateful) citizens of Ninjago, the list went on. So was it really too much to ask for having a good relationship with his parents?

_Apparently._

He just wanted for his mom to _stay_ but he knew that that already was too much to ask from her. She wasn’t the type of person to stay in one place, always running around trying to find out more about Ninjago’s history, trying to find more artifacts and legends, perhaps even trying to forget the family and the responsibilities she had to them.

But in that case, Lloyd sometimes wondered if maybe it had been better if she had chosen to _not_ have children. it would’ve spared both of them from so much trouble.

Same for his father of course. He decided to have a child, knowing full well that the Devourers venom went through his veins and was soon going to corrupt him.

So _why_ decide to throw a child into the mix. Just thinking about it made him angry. They didn’t even give him the chance to have a happy and healthy childhood. His life had been set up for tragedy from the start, and sometimes he regretted being born because of it and hoped that all of this was just a bad dream, that he was going to wake up and have both his parents at his side, being able to have a nice childhood.

He never woke up.


End file.
